


Stuck on Repeat

by crescentStarlight



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Breakups, M/M, Sadstuck, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-12
Updated: 2013-01-12
Packaged: 2017-11-25 06:27:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/636064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crescentStarlight/pseuds/crescentStarlight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Jake has serious issues with his memory. He's broken up with Dirk a dozen times, and he keeps on doing it. Every time, Dirk plays along and pretends it's the first while hiding how much it hurts.</i>
</p><p>It keeps happening and you can't take it anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stuck on Repeat

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by dirkjakeheadcanons: 
> 
>  
> 
> _Jake has serious issues with his memory. He's broken up with Dirk a dozen times, and he keeps on doing it. Every time, Dirk plays along and pretends it's the first while hiding how much it hurts._

==> Be the guy about to get dumped

It's happening again, isn't it. Fourth time this month. The only thing keeping you from thinking you’re in some horrorterror created nightmare is constantly checking the calendar to see, yes, time is passing. You see him sitting on one of the red stone structures, fiddling with his sleeve. You sigh. Might as well get this over with. 

You know what will happen. You'll walk up to him and give him a short greeting. "Hey man, what's up?" 

You'll kiss him. The first few times, it was on the lips. After the fourth time, your kisses get shorter. After the sixth time, you restrict yourself to his cheek. This time you can't even bear to do that. It hurts too much to hope.

He doesn't notice the change. Why would he? 

As usual, he smiles nervously and says, "Hello chap. Thanks for making the trek all the way to LOMAX. Sit down." 

You do. You held his hand the first time. You sat within reaching distance the second. You sat further away the third time. 

He fidgets, starts and stops, and you mentally brace yourself for what you know is coming. 

"Look Strider, you're a great guy and an even greater friend. But I don't think this relationship thing is working."

You look down. You used to try and talk it out with him. After the tenth time you didn't even bother. Why would you, when the outcome would be the same no matter what you did? 

You do what you have done for the past two times. You simply say, "Fine," and walk away. You walk to the gate calmly. Once you're out of sight, you run.

The tears start falling on your cheeks. No matter how many times Jake rejects you, you always cry.

You reach the gate to go back to your planet and home. It's the only place you're alone and safe. Thank goodness, your house was placed high enough upon entrance to the Medium that you don't need a gas mask. The gate drops you into your kitchen and you run to your room.

You tear off your glasses and throw them on the floor and yourself on the bed. Once your shades are off you don't feel the pressure of having to always be cool and collected. You can just be a heartbroken sixteen year old who doesn't know how to stop loving. 

You reach for your strife specibus. You recently got daggerkind from Jake. He alchemized the dagger to have green and orange stones circling the handle.

He called it a dirk. Your namesake. And as such, your blood is the only kind on it.

You slip off your black wifebeater. You started this after the eighth time, doing it a little more in the beginning to make up for the past. You lift the blade to your chest, right over where you know your heart is. 

You press the tip into your skin and drag it slowly from your right side to your left. The crimson blood starts trickling out. It stings, but not nearly as much as the constant replaying of how Jake doesn’t want you anymore. The cut is never deep enough to be anywhere close to fatal, but it's always deep enough to scar.

You hate and love the symbolism.

The tears start falling faster. Why don't they stop? Why can't you stop? A strangled, almost animalistic, sob tears its way from your lips. 

You hate your feelings. Most of you wishes they would leave with your tears and blood as they drip onto your sheets and the handle of your dagger. Maybe if you bleed enough, they will. You throw the weapon to the side, flop down on the bed and press your palms into your eyes.

When the blood dries, another line will join the rest on your chest. Twelve lines, crisscrossing over your heart. One for every time Jake has forgotten that he's already left you. 

==> Be the other guy

You are now JAKE ENGLISH. Dirk seemed upset when he left, but you couldn’t be sure how upset. Well, he did have the right to be upset. After all, you did just break up with him. 

You can never tell what he’s feeling. How he’s going to react. What he’ll think of anything you say or do. It’s one of the reasons that you chose to leave this relationship. 

He used to be so clingy and overbearing, trying to control every detail of your life. It was suffocating, but you went along with it because you saw how happy he was to be with you. You went along with it as long as you could. 

You feel like you had something to do with the change, but you can’t for the life of you figure out what it is. He went from domineering boyfriend, overwhelming you with kisses, sweet words and affection to suddenly sullen with a forced smile. You tried to brush it off, say that Dirk was probably having a bad day; maybe he didn’t get enough sleep. But months went by and it never got better. On the contrary, it only got worse. He hasn’t kissed you, hugged you, even touched you in weeks. 

And every sudden drop in what made him _Dirk_ was accompanied by a strange feeling that you were missing part of the picture. You’ve talked less and less. Your relationship kind of fell apart. You wanted to break up with him before for being too affectionate, for suffocating you. But now you wanted to leave this for the exact opposite.

Perhaps it’s time to go find out what’s happening with your friend.

==> Be the guy who’s about to get surprised

You are DIRK again and what was that noise.

You immediately get your katana with one hand and grab your shirt with the other. 

“Strider, are you in here?”

It’s Jake. He’s not supposed to follow you! 

You quickly slip on your shirt again… and are suddenly and painfully reminded of your prior activities. The wound still hasn’t stopped bleeding, and there’s no way you can hurriedly bandage that thing. You’ll just have to hope he doesn’t notice.

His stomping footsteps get closer as you hurriedly rub at your face to make sure it looks like you haven’t been crying. You stand up just as Jake bursts in your door, breathing heavily and looking quite frazzled. 

“Strider. We need to talk.”

“So talk. I’m all ears.”

He sighs and walks up to you. He’s doing that twisty hand thing again. You really don’t want to do this. You just want him to go do whatever while you try to sleep away your problems. 

“I don’t know what’s up with you, Strider. You were overbearing in the beginning but now you’re almost nonexistent! What made you change?”

Oh. He’s trying to justify breaking up with you. He’s asking you questions instead of you asking him. 

“I feel like we aren’t even friends now. You’re still my best bro, and I don’t want that to change.”

You have no words for him. There’s no way to explain why you drifted away without telling him why you’re hurting so much. You’d rather he not hurt just because you are. That’s what love does, you guess. 

He deflates a little. “Dirk, I know there’s a problem and I’m trying to fix it. But I can’t read your mind, you’ve gotta talk to me!” His arm comes up and his hand gently rests itself on your shoulder, testing to see how you react to his contact.

“I don’t want our friendship to go to waste.”

It’s then that he pulls you into one of his signature “brohugs” that you and he shared often in the past. But you've still got a bleeding cut right on your chest and it’s pressing up against him and fuck it hurts _fuckfuckfuck_

==> Wait, why are we going back to Jake now?

You are JAKE ENGLISH and you are STEALING BACK THE NARRATIVE because you've got some crazy thoughts here. You were having a moment of pure emotion, and when you gave Dirk a hug, you felt something wet on his chest. Your hug had lasted for all of a second before he jumped back, his hand about to go to his chest before he forced it back down.

There’s something wrong here.

You reach to touch him again, find out what that damp spot is, and he slaps your hand away and steps back more. Without his pointy anime shades, you can see how wide his eyes are and how they’re filled with fear. 

Something glints in the corner of your eye and you shift your eyes to his bed. Dirk seems to know what you’re about to see and he moves quickly to cover it.

But not before you see the bloodstained dagger on the bed. The dagger that you gave him.

A gasp escapes you as your mind whirls around endless possibilities. His back is turned to you, hand at his chest, and you step towards him.

“D-Dirk? Is that what I think it is?”

He is silent. A shudder runs through you.

“Dirk…why? Why did you do this to yourself?”

He has no answer for you. You turn him around. His right hand was clenched on his wifebeater, the same place the wet spot was. You gently pry his fingers away and he lets you. You put your hand on his chest and he hisses and flinches. He looks away.

When you move to remove his shirt, he swats you away again. You give him a hard look, and he looks back at you. His eyes are filled with tears and sorrow. This isn't the Dirk you know. 

“Dirk, what is happening?”

He steps back some more, shakes his head and says, “Nothing. It’s nothing, bro. Nothing’s happening. Just…go away.” He turns around once more. Your hand shakes as you grab his arm. He yanks it away and runs out of the room. You run after him. He’s faster than you, but not that much after you’ve trained with him. By the time you’re in the living room, you manage to tackle him, flip him over, and pin him down.

He could have done so much better. He wasn't even trying to escape. 

“Stop shutting me out! I want to help you, but I can’t if you keep dancing around me!”

He is breathing heavily, obviously only concentrating on the pain. You try to remove his shirt again. He doesn't stop you. 

What you see makes you want to gag.

Scarred lines run all over his chest. One of which is obviously fresh and still bleeding. What scares you more is that some are much older than others are. There’s no way one of the skeleton enemies could have done this. It’s too…purposeful. 

Before you even deal with Dirk’s feelings (and yours), you have to bandage this wound before it ends up getting infected. You reach into your sylladex and grab bandages and wipes. Dirk’s head is turned to the side, eyes clenched. You are silent as you clean and bandage the cut. 

Once you are done, you grab his head and make him look at you. “Dirk, I want an answer. Why did you do this?”

==> Let’s hear Dirk’s take on this

You are DIRK once more and you grudgingly TAKE BACK THE NARRATIVE so you can spill out your emotions some more. Joy. You try to take the swirling mess of feelings and thoughts, doubt, self-loathing, and despair and put it into coherent words without scaring Jake.

“I…I couldn't take it anymore. You probably even don’t know why.”

“No, I don’t know why! I don’t know why you keep getting more and more distant. I don’t know why I have all these weird breaks in my memory. I don’t know why I feel like something happened and it’s right there but I can’t reach it. It’s so _frustrating_ because I don’t know why any of this is happening!”

You see the crystal tears start to drip down his face. You can’t bear to see him cry. You sigh and free one of your hands from his grip to brush it away gently.

“You really don’t remember do you.”

He shakes his head furiously. “What happened, Dirk? Tell me.”

“I don’t want you to be upset. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“It’s hurting me by not knowing what’s going on!”

“You already broke up with me!”

Your shouted reply shocks him into silence as he waits for you to explain. You squeeze your eyes closed and take a deep breath.

“Three months. One week. Two days ago. You broke up with me the first time. The next day you acted like it never happened. Confused the fuck out of me. Five days later, you said you wanted to leave me again. It kept happening in different variables of time. Sometimes you would stay for over a week; sometimes I would have no contact with you for the same amount of time. I could never tell what you wanted and just gave up somewhere between time four and time nine.”

A drop of water hits your neck, bringing you back to reality. You open your eyes to see Jake crying above you, looking completely broken. His hands have drifted to your shoulders and his nails are digging into your skin. But the sting from his grip doesn't come close to the rush of pain that hits you when you see his clenched jaw and distraught eyes. He looks like his heart is getting shattered to pieces.

_Serves him right. Let him know how I felt for these past three months._

You wince at that thought.

_No. Nobody should have to feel this way._

His voice shakes as he asks, “H-how many times did it happen?”

“Count my scars.” You say that with a self-depreciating smirk. Your stomach turns as you wait for his reaction. 

His eyes go wide as he shouts, “Dirk!”

“Though I guess the bandage will make it hard to do that. Total of twelve including today.”

His arms tremble and you fear that he will fall on top of you. So you gently wrap your arms around his broad shoulders ( _you would rest your head on them when you cuddled together will it ever happen again_ ) and slowly pull him down towards you. This doesn’t stop him from nearly collapsing on you as he puts his arms behind your neck and starts sobbing into your hair. It sounds like he’s trying to say something but it comes out garbled and muffled, punctuated by hiccups and sharp breaths of air. It all strings into “I’m sorry I never meant to do that I’m so sorry Dirk I hate myself I don’t want you to be hurt please forgive me I’m so sorry-”

And that is when you feel your eyes start to burn with tears. You thought you were all cried out, but you were wrong. Jake still makes you feel. No matter what kinds or how many walls you put up he still manages to break them all down. You could never stop loving him. 

Though it makes your chest sting again, you pull Jake close to you. He can feel the wetness on your cheeks now, and it only makes him cry harder. This in turn causes you to break down into sobs too. The two of you just lie there, crying together. Jake is still speaking, still apologizing, and you cut him off. 

“Jake, stop.”

He flinches and goes silent. His arms loosen as if he is about to get up and run away at your first word. 

"It's not your fault. You can't control losing your memories. I should have said something."

He shakes his quickly. "No, I could have done something. I should have talked to you more. That way I never would have even thought of leaving you. I should have-"

You raise your hand and place it on his mouth. He is quiet as you pull him down to eye level. 

"Let's agree that there was something we both could have done." 

He nods in agreement.

"Then we'll make a promise. I, Dirk Strider, swear on irony and orange soda that I will tell you if something is wrong, help you with your memory problems, and I won't...hurt myself anymore."

He looks like wants to wince at the last part, but he nods and says, "And I, Jake English, swear on adventure and skulls, that I will try to remember everything and I will communicate with you more."

You both smile. You two fistbump for friendship and hook pinkies for irony. 

But now that you have calmed down, doubt begins to creep back into the scarred remains of your heart. Will he still be your boyfriend? Or will you have to settle for being just friends? You hope it's the former, even though you'd rather be friends than lose him forever. You look at him unsurely. He looks back at you and glances down. 

You are both reminded again of the cuts littering your chest. You are oddly self-conscious of them. Your hands go to cover them. He gently touches them, seeing how you react. You close your eyes and he moves your hands to the side. Jake ghosts his fingertips on your shoulder before moving to touch your scars. 

A few hours ago, you would have recoiled and pushed him away. But now, his touch is soothing. The tension in your body flows out. Even after all that has happened, you still trust him. 

He slowly lowers his head to be level with your heart and his hands go to your arms. You let out a breath through your nose, but it is quickly sucked back in as he presses his lips to the scars. Jake kisses all twelve of the marks, lingering on the last one. 

He raises his eyes to see you smiling at him. He gives you a bright smile in return. The two of you sit up and touch your foreheads together. His forest-green eyes flutter closed as you hesitantly press a chaste kiss to his lips. You know he knows what the hidden question is:

_Will you take me back?_

He entwines his fingers with yours as he kisses back. You know his answer.

_As long as you take me back too._

A warm feeling goes through your entire body. You think it is your heart being mended.

**Author's Note:**

> Wow it took forever to finish this. It was supposed to just end with Dirk's first part, but it sort of grew into something more. Hope you liked it!


End file.
